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J.J. Abrams Producing a Secret Alien Sci-Fi Project at Sony Pictures

Considering the fact that Sony Pictures is dealing with the fallout of a massive hack of their entire technological infrastructure, resulting in leaked documents covering everything from budgets to focus group testing and more, it's amazing that anything is staying secret over there. But Deadline reports that a secret sci-fi project is in development from producer J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot production banner. The film will mark the directorial debut of Chris Alender, who has made waves due to his short film Eye of the Storm. Supposedly Sony won out in a bidding war thanks to their aggressive production plan. More below!

If you're interested, here's the short film Eye of the Storm that Chris Alender directed:

As is the case with any project that Abrams gets his hands on, the story is being kept under tight wraps. However, it's been said that this film is in the same vein of Cloverfield as far as tone and budget and it will also involve aliens. Abrams also hopes to launch Alender's career with this film much in the same way Cloverfield got Matt Reeves on the map and he went on to turn in films like Let Me In and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes this past summer. It's surprising that film didn't get set up at Paramount where Bad Robot has a deal, but the studio didn't bite, and Abrams convinced them to let the project find a new home.

But it wasn't just Abrams who did the legwork to get the project moving. Alender himself pitched the hell out of the project by not only having a polished script (with the last draft done by Justin Doble, who wrote an episode of "Fringe" and "Almost Human" each), but also a sizzle reel showing off some of his ideas that would be fresh in the sci-fi genre, and a digital book with a bunch of visuals from the movie. And on top of all that, he also cut a five-minute teaser clip with a bunch of action, and it sounds like the studio ate it up. Now we'll have to play the waiting game and see when Sony gets this one off the ground.